China can still influence N Korea

By Steve Tsang 曾銳生

North Korea’s third nuclear test is a game changer not only for the US and Japan, but also for the regime’s last ally, China.

The official Chinese reaction to North Korea’s latest provocation was stern: China is “strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed” to the test, and it is calling for the resumption of international talks.

However, China’s stance lacks meaningful bite, because its leaders fail to recognize that they no longer need to succumb to their unruly neighbor’s blackmail. In carrying out the test, the North Koreans have once again compromised China’s national interests.

The international community is firmly focused on China’s relationship with its rogue ally, and expects that, as an emerging superpower seeking to reassure the world of its peaceful rise, China will play a constructive role. However limited China’s influence may be, the North Korean regime cannot sustain itself without Chinese backing.

With North Korea’s latest nuclear test coming so quickly after its rocket launch in December last year, the UN has good reason to ask China, a permanent Security Council member, to take the diplomatic lead.

It is simply not enough for China to call, as its official statement does, for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks with South Korea, China, the US, Japan and Russia. That framework has been thoroughly discredited by the North’s repeated violation of past agreements.

China must warn North Korea that it will not be pressured into providing support even when Chinese national interests have been undermined. Indeed, China should make clear that, much as it would prefer North Korea to survive and prosper, it could afford to allow its erstwhile ally to implode.

Simply put, the conventional wisdom that North Korea’s collapse would be disastrous for China is misconceived. Any crisis sparked by North Korean refugees fleeing across the Chinese border would be short-lived, and international assistance would be readily available.

Likewise, China need not fear a South Korea-led unification of the peninsula.

China already enjoys a smoother relationship with the South than it does with the North. Unification would occupy the Korean people for the next two decades, with Japan and the US compelled to inject a huge amount of aid to rebuild and reintegrate the North. This hardly runs counter to China’s interests as it continues its own advance toward becoming the world’s largest economy.

Indeed, if this process were to unfold, the US rationale for keeping its own military forces in South Korea would disappear.A phased reduction of the US presence would follow.

If the US wished to maintain bases in Korea in the longer term, it would have to secure permission from a proud and newly united Korean nation –– hardly a forgone conclusion. A united Korea would have inherited the North’s nuclear weapons. This would pose challenges to US-Korea relations, which should work to China’s advantage.

The US would remain committed to de-nuclearizing the peninsula, while the Korean government would be tempted to retain the North’s nuclear capabilities. Such strain would further reduce the risk of having US troops stationed on the Korean side of China’s border.

China must also consider the implications of North Korea’s actions on its own fractious relations with Japan.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) top foreign-policy priority is to force the Japanese government to acknowledge, if not accept, China’s territorial claims in the two countries’ dispute over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, in the East China Sea.